One in three people will resist identity checks according to Government
figures. The just-released statistics predict a widespread revolt over
identity cards, but the Home Office has dismissed the figures as irrelevant
and out of date.

In 2004 Mark Oaten, the then Liberal Democrat spokesman on home affairs,
asked for figures to be published on the assumptions being made by Government
about ID cards' use. The Government refused. Oaten's request was backed
by the Information Commissioner and an Information Tribunal and the figures
have now been released.

The figures show that 30 per cent of people were predicted by the Government
to refuse to co-operate with ID card checks. The papers, published by
the Department for Work and Pensions, show that officials expected that
60 per cent of people would carry an ID card even if it became compulsory
to own but not carry one.

ID cards will be introduced next year on a voluntary basis, but the officials
had operated on the assumption that they would be compulsory to have but
not necessarily to carry by 2014. Even then, just 60 per cent of people
would choose to carry a card, and a further 10 per cent would be happy
to confirm their identity by a finger or eye-scan on the street, officials
assumed.

They also calculated, though, that 30 per cent of people would refuse
to carry or show their card or to submit to a finger or eye scan to confirm
their identity.

The Home Office, the Government department in charge of ID cards, said
the figures were "incredibly out of date", but did not indicate
whether or not they still formed the basis of working assumptions forming
the basis of Government plans.

The figures show that the Government believed in 2004 that ID cards would
cut some benefit frauds in half. They calculated that identity fraud in
Income Support and Jobseekers Allowance benefits would drop from £50m
a year to £25m.

Plans for ID cards have faced widespread opposition, and Government plans
to use a completely new, dedicated computer database as the basis for
them have been scrapped. Several existing Government databases will now
be used.

The Government has also dropped plans to have an iris scan form part
of every ID card. In a Strategic Action Plan published in December, iris
scanning was listed as only an option and not a requirement.

A recent survey conducted on behalf of the Daily Telegraph found that
hundreds of thousands of UK citizens would refuse to sign up to a national
identity register in the first place, even if it resulted in fines.